A Mujuushin Bedtime Story
by Ariel the Tempest
Summary: Years later, the dojo still remembers the student who killed his master, but their version of the story does not precisely match his own.


Title: A Mujuushin Bedtime Story

Fandom: Samurai Champloo

Rating: T, for violence.

Warnings: THIS IS AN AU. It was begun during the long break between episodes 17 and 18, and finished before episode #25's crucial revelations about Jin's past. I am offering it now as a look at how others might try to explain Enshiro's murder, and how it might be described in the rumors that seem to surround Jin wherever he goes. Spoilers for Jin's backstory up through episode 24.

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There is a story that is told in the dojo dormitories only after curfew. It has been passed down by word of mouth for so long that the names have all been lost, but the strange dark power of the tale remains. The younglings listen wide-eyed to the senior students who tell them of the _mononoke_# that haunts their school…

Once, there was a boy who was very good with the sword. So good, in fact, that his family sent him away to be trained by one of the greatest swordsmen in all of Japan when he was only six. It was a little sad, to be away from home at such a tender age, but the boy loved the way of the warrior with all his heart, and so he did not mind overmuch. For ten years, the boy studied and practiced and improved his skill. Bushido was his only comfort and his only joy, for the other students were jealous and fearful of his furious skill, but it was all that he needed. He was a model student, and his sensei was a model teacher, and everything was right with the world.

Or so the boy thought. In truth, he had grown so skilled that his sensei, who had fought a thousand sword battles and never lost, feared that he might soon be beaten. Though the boy had once been dear to him, oh, how he hated the thought of losing to one he had taught from a little child! He did not worry in vain, either. One day when the boy was seventeen he was sparring with his master—when they practiced together they used real swords, not wood, but did not follow through all the way on the strokes—and won. He did not merely hold the older man to a draw, he decisively defeated him.

The boy, glowing with accomplishment and surprise, bowed deeply to his sensei, thanking him for the wonderful match, and for all his years of instruction. The master, still furiously seething at the loss, suddenly saw an opportunity, and took it. While the boy was still bent over thanking him, he lifted his sword from where it had fallen, slipped behind the boy, and drove the blade into his lower back, near the spine. It seemed that he did it without conscious thought, for it was not until he heard the boy's first gasp of pain that he realized what the consequences of his act might be. But he was not a master of a thousand victories for nothing, and he did not falter for long before shouting out that an accident had occurred, and when people came running help he calmly explained that the boy had been careless. The boy was in no condition to refute that—not only had he already lost a great deal of blood, but his shock at this betrayal had left him beyond words, and perhaps also beyond hope.

His world had been shattered, and the will to live was gone.

The boy was carried out of dojo, once the bleeding had been stopped, and put to bed, and tended, but it seemed in vain. The night passed, and he only seemed to grow weaker and closer to death.

He might have been gone by the next sundown, had not another sword-master, from the Aki prefecture, arrived that day to visit his esteemed colleague. He heard about the terrible accident of the day before, that might soon rob the master of his finest pupil, and something niggled in his mind. Star students are not made by carelessness, and he wanted to see the boy's injury for himself. Reluctantly his friend lead him to the sickroom, and the Aki master's suspicion grew. When he saw the way the master avoided his pupil's open-but-unseeing eyes, however, he knew the truth. He also knew that it could never be proven. So he knelt beside the boy and whispered into his ear, "I cannot offer to replace what you have lost with something of equal value, but I can give you what you need to make your life your own again. However, you must trust me, and you must make the effort to live." The boy regarded him through a haze of desolation, fever, and pain, but seemed to understand what was offered. He gave the slightest of nods, and the Aki master gave him a smile equally subtle.

He left that night, carrying the boy with him on a stretcher, but knowing that when the boy returned it would be on his own two feet, ready to seek his revenge.

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#A _mononoke _is a wrathful spirit, often one that possesses people. It can be the avatar of a restless ghost, or it can be a spiritual force created by a living person in the grip of some terrible emotion, often rage or jealousy. Read the "Evening Faces" or "Heartvine" chapters of the _Tale of Genji_ if you want to see one in action.


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